Panakeia - Roguelite Action Game
Spring 2015
Bachelor Project in Game Design ZHdK
Team: Martina Hugentobler, Alice Ruppert
Role: Programming, Balancing, Game Design
Panakeia is a challenging action game with procedurally generated levels in which the player is tasked with healing an infected world and its inhabitants.
Although the games look nothing alike in their final version, Panakeia is a sort of spiritual successor to BEEST: I used a heavily modified version of BEEST's level generator, and was able to profit greatly from lessons learned in the previous semester.
Our main focus for the game and thesis was to make a game with core roguelike characteristics - permadeath, procedural levels and high difficulty - while breaking with a lot of conventions present in the roguelike genre. So while a lot of games in the genres work with 2D or pixel art, we went with intense, colorful 3D. Where a lot of roguelike games are about clearing a dungeon - i.e. killing anything that moves - we deided to make our game about healing.
That decision in turn brought a lot of unforseen complications, such as that creatures that have been "dealt with" stay around and as such, need to still be animated and have some sort of behaviour.
Panakeia offers five different types of allies and enemies that players have to interact with, and 10 different active and passive skills that players can find, equip and use.
Check out the Thesis Paper (PDF) for more details.
Reviews & links:
20min.ch article
Interview with IGN Greece
Panakeia Gameplay
Design Process - Development Montage